Mysterious Missives
by Rapunzel4
Summary: Response to a challenge. Watanuki has gained a secret admirer, but he seems to be the only one who thinks this is a good thing. DouWata
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: The wonderful entity known as CLAMP created xxxHolic and its characters, and I don't think they'll be handing them over to me any time soon.

Warnings: Eventual Doumeki/Watanuki

Author's Note: This was done in response to a challenge from the Doumeki/Watanuki live journal community (late, I know, still not finished, and not the only response, but better than nothing).

Mysterious Missives

By Rapunzel

Chapter 1

There was a note in his shoe locker.

Watanuki blinked, then blinked again. He was tempted to rub his eyes behind his glasses. Despite his blinking, the piece of paper still lay there innocently, trying to pretend that it was not the most astonishing thing he had seen all day. Nobody left him notes. Ever. He had only a few classmates who would associate with him, and even fewer friends. There were occasionally witnesses who reported Watanuki struggling with air, rolling around and writhing on the ground, or shouting at things no one else could see. These reports had led to the commonly held belief that Watanuki Kimihiro was more than a little crazy, and crazy people were not, as a general rule, popular.

And yet, there was a slip of paper with writing on it lying in his shoe locker, and no amount of blinking seemed to make it disappear.

A joyful thought occurred to Watanuki. The note might be from Himawari-chan! Of course, it must be her; the other girls would barely give him the time of day. Sweet, cute, wonderful Himawari-chan! Maybe she wanted to ask him to meet her somewhere, somewhere quiet and secluded where she could confess her feelings. He could picture her now, waiting under one of the trees near the edge of campus, and when he came, she would look up and smile shyly, and...

"Ah, Himawari-chan!" Watanuki cried, overcome by this vision.

"Oi."

That voice had the power to bring Watanuki's daydreams to a screeching, grinding halt. "My name is not 'Oi'!" he growled.

Doumeki ignored him as usual. "Are you planning to go sometime this afternoon?" he asked.

"I don't remember asking you to walk to work with me!" Watanuki hissed. "Besides, I haven't read my note from Himawari-chan yet."

"Note?" Doumeki asked, one eyebrow raised. "Why would Kunogi leave you a note when she sees you all the time?"

"Maybe she was just too shy to say it in person," Watanuki said, blushing happily at the thought, Doumeki's attempt at logical thinking completely drowned out in his head by the vision of loveliness that was Himawari-chan.

Doumeki frowned, then, observing that Watanuki had no note in his hand, he peered into Watanuki's shoe locker, reaching in and drawing out the mysterious slip of paper. Watanuki quickly snatched it from him. "Himawari-chan wrote it to** me**, not you, and **I **am going to read it!"

He prepared to open the note, but paused at the look on Doumeki's face. To Watanuki, it almost seemed as though Doumeki looked a the paper as one might look at a venomous snake, a look of fearful loathing mixed with a desire to destroy. For a moment, Watanuki wondered if Doumeki was truly jealous of him for securing Himawari-chan's regard. Then the look was gone, and Watanuki was sure he must have imagined it. Doumeki, show emotion? That would be the day.

When Watanuki finally opened the note, however, he was surprised to find that not only was it not from Himawari-chan (the handwriting didn't look a bit like hers, and he would know), but it didn't say who it was from.

"Dear Watanuki-san," the note began, "you probably think that I'm very silly, writing a letter to you instead of just telling you face to face. But the truth is that I'm shy, and I'm sure I'd lose my nerve if I tried to talk to you. So I had to write it instead of saying it. I like you. I think you're the most fascinating person I've ever come across. I know that ordinarily you'd never spend time with someone like me, but I hope that someday you'll reconsider.

Your admirer."

Watanuki read the note, then read it again to make sure he wasn't imagining things. He was so caught up in his astonishment that it took him almost a full minute to realize that Doumeki was standing next to him and making no attempts at subtlety whatsoever as he read over Watanuki's shoulder.

"Do you mind?!" Watanuki sputtered, clutching the note protectively to his chest and leaping about a half a foot away from Doumeki once he realized what he was doing.

"Who's it from?" Doumeki asked.

The day Doumeki learned to use tact would be the day Yuuko gave up sake forever, Watanuki decided. And that day didn't seem to be approaching with any dispatch.

"I don't know!" Watanuki snapped. "It wasn't signed, as you should already know since you read it!"

"Most girls wouldn't write you love letters," Doumeki said flatly.

"You don't have to rub it in!" Watanuki snarled, fuming. Honestly, just because Doumeki was so popular without even trying to be, he didn't have to make fun of Watanuki's failure to attract girls.

"If there aren't many girls who would write you a note like that, then you should know who they are and have an idea who wrote the note," Doumeki said.

Watanuki wasn't sure how that logically followed, and he said so. "How should I know who it's from? What kind of logic is that? The note said she couldn't talk to me about it, so even if I've seen her before, I wouldn't know it was her! What, am I supposed to be some sort of mind reader on top of everything else?"

He continued to rant as he grabbed his bag, despite the fact that Doumeki had stuck his fingers in his ears. As they left the school grounds, however, he paused in his yelling to pull out the note and look over it again. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he really didn't have the first clue who it came from. The thought that he could receive such a letter was both absurd and exhilarating. After all, it was nice to feel wanted and desired, even if he had no idea who wanted and desired him.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he completely failed to notice Doumeki continually casting suspicion laden glances at the piece of paper still clutched in his hand.

/-/-/-/

By the time he reached Yuuko's shop, Watanuki had tucked the note safely out of sight in his pants pocket. He didn't especially want his employer to see it, since she would only tease him, and he wanted to hold on to the magical feeling of actually having an admirer for a little while longer before Yuuko went and popped his bubble. Of course, tucking things out of Yuuko's sight didn't necessarily mean that she didn't know about them anyway, as Watanuki had on many occasions discovered, but he still thought it worth the attempt.

He made it through the first gauntlet run all right. Yuuko was there to greet him at the door with her usual requests for sake, but she said nothing about the note. Watanuki quickly slipped away to get her requested drink with his usual amount of grumbling, pleased with himself for having escaped detection. Showing the note to Yuuko would be like declaring open season on himself as far as teasing went, and he silently vowed to keep the note a secret from her for as long as possible.

Once he started work, however, he found it difficult to concentrate. The note kept popping back into his head, and he found himself blushing at random intervals just thinking about it. Was it really possible that there was actually a girl at his school who liked him that much? The idea was both intriguing and flattering, and he found himself pausing in the middle of dusting to pull the note out of his pocket and look it over again.

"Watanuki, what is that?"

Watanuki dropped both his duster and the note as he jumped a foot in the air. Then he instantly chastised himself for being so startled; after all, it had only been a matter of time before Yuuko decided to insert herself into his affairs.

"No...nothing!" Watanuki said hastily, scrambling after the paper in a last ditch effort to save it from his employer's prying eyes. But of course, it was too late. Yuuko had already stooped to pick up the missive and was reading it over, one eyebrow delicately raised.

"Yuuko-san," Watanuki said, trying to sound as scolding as possible, "it's not polite to read other people's mail." First Doumeki, and now her. Really, what was it with people trying to invade his privacy?

He might as well have said nothing for all the attention she paid his words. Yuuko kept reading calmly, then raised her eyes to smirk at him. "Well, well, Watanuki, aren't you popular."

"Popular! Popular!" Maru and Moro sang in the background, and Watanuki felt himself blushing again.

"Sounds like Watanuki's got a girl after him!" Mokona chirped, and Watanuki realized that the creature had been sitting on Yuuko's shoulder the whole time, reading along with her. He blushed again, this time in anger.

"Oi! Haven't you people ever heard of the concept of privacy?" he snapped, making a wild dive for the note.

Yuuko simply held it above her head and watched in amusement as Watanuki flailed and jumped madly in an attempt to reach it. He was finally forced to give up and resign himself to grumbling while Yuuko retained possession of his letter. Damn that woman and her unnatural height.

"It's interesting," Yuuko remarked, "that she likes you so much and yet she doesn't bother to say who she is."

"She's shy," Watanuki replied, seeing nothing unusual in that.

"But it detracts from her confession," Yuuko said. "How much meaning do her words really have if she won't even attach a name or a face to them? If she had asked you to meet her so that she could talk to you, that would be different, wouldn't it?"

She lowered the note to look over it again, and Watanuki took the opportunity to snatch it away from her. "Don't be so hard on her, Yuuko-san," he said, tucking the note carefully back in his pocket. "Most girls aren't as bold as you are."

"The Zashiki Warashi was shy, and even she came to tell you face to face," Yuuko pointed out.

"Well, this girl obviously isn't the Zashiki Warashi either," Watanuki said. "Now, if you're done poking through my personal affairs and criticizing a girl you've never met, I'm going to get back to work."

"Fine, fine," Yuuko said, waving her hand lazily. "Just remember, Watanuki, that things aren't always as simple as they seem. Human lives are complicated things, especially yours."

Watanuki paused, duster raised in one hand, seized by a sudden suspicion. "Yuuko-san, you don't know something about who sent me that note, do you? It could have been from anyone."

"That's the problem with anonymous letters, Watanuki," Yuuko said, her lips half curved into a weird little smile. "They can be from **anyone**."


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: The wonderful entity known as CLAMP created xxxHolic and its characters, and I don't think they'll be handing them over to me any time soon.

Warnings: Eventual Doumeki/Watanuki

Author's Notes: Yes, I know it's been a long time since I posted this. I have no excuse.

Mysterious Missives

By Rapunzel

Chapter 2

Watanuki spent most of the rest of that night trying to figure out what Yuuko had been getting at. She'd been trying to tell him something, of that he was fairly certain, but there seemed to be a law of nature that stated that Ichihara Yuuko could never just come out and say what she meant. She seemed to feel that Watanuki should work for the knowledge she was trying to provide for him, and then she had the gall to charge him for it **again** afterwards. Life really was unfair.

When he reached his apartment later that evening, Watanuki pulled the note out of his pocket and stared at it again. If he had read Yuuko's tone and manner correctly (and after over a year of working as her servant/slave, Watanuki was starting to get some idea of her mannerisms), she had strongly implied that she knew who the note was from. No big surprise there; Watanuki had found himself wondering on more than one occasion if there was anything Yuuko didn't know. But knowing that she knew didn't mean that he could simply ask her to tell him who it was from. He wasn't sure what sort of price she would slap on the information, but it would almost certainly be more than he wanted to pay.

All right, so asking Yuuko directly was out. Still, she had probably given him hints (and he had to wonder if he'd end up paying for those too, or if his frustration and time spent agonizing over them already met the price). Watanuki had a fair opinion of his own intelligence; maybe, given enough time, he could figure it out.

To begin with, he was working off the assumption that the writer, whoever she was, was from his school. Since the note had been left in his shoe locker, this seemed a fair guess. What girls were there at his school that Yuuko knew about?

The answer seemed obvious. Himawari, of course. She was the only one he could think of who fit the bill. And when he thought about it, the tone Yuuko had used when trying to discredit the letter writer was not unlike the one she used when she reminded him that Himawari was not his Goddess of Good Luck. Watanuki sometimes thought of it as her "Are you sure you want to do this? Absolutely sure? Because I would think twice if I were you" tone. (He also called it the "It's your funeral" tone, or more accurately, the "You'll be the one making lunch for Doumeki all week when he has to rescue you again" tone. Sometimes he wasn't sure which option was preferable.)

But if Yuuko's tones were to be believed, had Himawari written the note after all? There was only one problem with his beautiful theory. The handwriting still looked nothing like Himawari's. But as he considered it, even that started to make sense. Himawari probably knew that he knew what her handwriting looked like. If she really was shy and wanted anonymity, of course she would try to disguise it. It all made sense!

"Ah, Himawari-chan!" Watanuki sighed dreamily, holding the note in front of him with both hands as if he were reaching out to hug it. He wondered what he should say to her tomorrow. Probably nothing, he decided. After all, Yuuko was right; the words would have more meaning coming from her directly. Perhaps if he gave her time, she might lose some of that adorable shyness and tell him outright.

He could hardly wait.

/-/-/-/

The next morning, Watanuki woke up feeling more cheerful than usual. He felt that the world was a bright and sunny place, despite the fact that it was actually slightly overcast, and the spirits that chased him to school didn't seem to bother him as much as usual. Of course, that could have been because Doumeki randomly appeared partway along his route and walked with him. Watanuki decided that nothing, not even his rival's presence, would manage to dampen his mood that morning, and he quickly launched into his new-found favorite topic of conversation: his anonymous note.

"You know, I think the letter yesterday might have been from Himawari-chan after all," he said.

Doumeki raised one eyebrow, but otherwise gave no response.

"Yuuko-san sort of hinted that it might be," Watanuki went on, as if that clinched it. He knew that Doumeki knew enough to not question any of Yuuko's knowledge.

So, of course, it wasn't her knowledge he questioned; it was her wording. "She actually said that?"

Watanuki's eye twitched in annoyance. Leave it to Doumeki to pick at the details. "Well, no, you know Yuuko. She never actually **says** anything, at least not until things are over. But she hinted it!" And he found himself describing his conversation with Yuuko the previous night.

Doumeki's face seemed to grow slightly darker as he listened. When Watanuki finished, he asked simply, "Are you stupid?"

"What?!" Watanuki cried, enraged. "No, I am not stupid, you are! Why would you even ask such a question now?"

"She's trying to warn you," Doumeki said, looking at Watanuki seriously.

"Yuuko-san? Trying to warn me about what?"

"About the letter and whoever wrote it," Doumeki said. "You should be careful."

Watanuki scowled at him. What the hell? There hadn't been anything particularly threatening or abnormal in the letter itself, which Doumeki should know, since he had read it. Where did Doumeki get off telling him to be careful just because he'd received an anonymous letter? The other boy probably received dozens of them every week, and he never seemed to think it worthy of caution.

"What, you think whoever wrote that letter wants to do something bad to me? Why? Just because I never get them, the first time I actually get a letter, it means that whoever wrote it must have ulterior motives? Well, excuse me if I'm not as popular as you are (although I will never understand **why** girls like you so much!), but I'd like to think that there can be at least one girl out there who might actually like me! You can afford to lose one from your fan club, so just shut up already!"

"Fine," Doumeki said. "Just promise me that if this mysterious letter writer asks you to meet her, you'll take along the pipe fox spirit."

"Why?" demanded Watanuki, to whom this request seemed entirely unreasonable. "So he can tickle me and make me writhe around and embarrass myself?"

Doumeki shrugged. "It wouldn't be that different from what you normally do."

"Why you-!" Watanuki bit off his words, too furious to even think of a proper insult. How dare Doumeki try to thwart him just because it looked like Watanuki might finally have a female admirer! Maybe the letter writer really was Himawari, and Doumeki was trying to get in his way because he wanted the girl for himself! Angry beyond all reason, and feeling more than a little paranoid, Watanuki strode ahead furiously, determined to put as much distance between himself and that stupid oaf as he could and to ignore the other boy's existence if at all possible.

He ended up being so busy ignoring Doumeki that he completely failed to notice the way the archer walked even closer to him than usual, his gaze watchful and wary.

/-/-/-/

Once he was in class and away from Doumeki, Watanuki began to feel a little more rational, and by the time lunch came around, he felt fairly confident in his ability to deal with the archer. Doumeki would probably have his mouth full eating most of the time anyway, and that would help cut down on the number of "Watanuki is an idiot" comments at least. And Himawari-chan would be there!

Himawari was there, as usual, and Watanuki greeted her cheerfully while trying to watch her surreptitiously for any signs of the sentiments talked about in the letter. She returned his smile and his greeting in that adorable manner of hers, but the next instant she turned to bestow the same treatment on Doumeki. Watanuki wanted to wilt and fade from notice, but he cheered himself by telling himself that if she was willing to go to the trouble of disguising her handwriting, she wouldn't let anything slip in normal conversation to show that she favored him.

Still, he couldn't quite stop himself from hoping that she would bring up the letter, ask to speak to him alone, or at least betray some knowledge of the missive that would prove that she had written it. Watanuki found himself sending hopeful glances her way, waiting for her to drop some kind of hint.

But of course, it was Doumeki who, noticing the glances, finally brought up the issue in the blunt, utterly tactless manner that only he could manage.

"Kunogi, did you leave a note in Watanuki's shoe locker yesterday?"

The clump of rice Watanuki had been about to put into his mouth dropped straight on to his pants, followed shortly by the chopsticks. Had Doumeki really just asked her that to her face? How dare he try to confront her about the issue when she obviously wasn't ready to talk about it herself?! The sheer nerve of the guy!

Himawari's face scrunched up into a cute little frown of confusion. "Eh?"

"Watanuki got an anonymous note in his locker from some girl yesterday. He thought it might be from you," Doumeki said, ignoring Watanuki, who sat behind him practically shaking with rage.

"Really?" Himawari sounded interested. "No, I didn't write any note to Watanuki-kun."

She looked so sincere when she said it that Watanuki couldn't doubt her, even as he felt his hopes crashing down around him. Then another thought occurred to him. If she hadn't written it, who had?

"Do you have a secret admirer, Watanuki-kun?" Himawari asked, beaming at him. "How exciting!"

That smile was enough to make Watanuki get over the disappointment of it not being her. "Yes! Yes, it really is!" he said, pleased that someone finally saw things his way. Of course, he probably shouldn't have been so happy that Himawari was happy to see another girl writing him love letters, but he pushed that aside. She could just be hiding her own feelings to cheer him on. And besides, she was just so cute when she smiled like that; he could practically see the air around her sparkle. Nothing like Doumeki, who, for all his face was expressionless as always, seemed to radiate an aura of gloom and doom.

That feeling seemed to only grow stronger as Watanuki detailed the circumstances of his finding the note and its contents to Himawari. She seemed perfectly enthusiastic about the subject, but she must have noticed Doumeki's disapproval, for she attempted to draw him in on the subject.

"Ne, Doumeki-kun, isn't it exciting? It's almost like that time that girl kept leaving flowers on your desk without a note."

"No, it isn't," Doumeki said. "I knew who was doing it, even if she didn't leave a note with her name on it. He," he hooked his thumb in Watanuki's direction, "doesn't have a clue."

"Maybe you can help him find out," Himawari suggested. "Since you two are such good friends, and I'm sure you have lots of experience with secret admirers."

"I don't need his help," Watanuki said a little waspishly, finding that he didn't particularly want to think about Doumeki's secret admirers, past or otherwise. "I'm sure I can figure it out on my own."

"But she didn't leave you her name or any way to meet her," Himawari said doubtfully. "I guess that's a little strange. I mean, how are you supposed to tell her how you feel about the whole thing?"

"Maybe she's scared and doesn't want to hear yet," Watanuki said.

"Maybe," Himawari said, frowning thoughtfully. "What do you think, Doumeki-kun?"

Doumeki leveled his expressionless gaze on her. "I think," he said, "that she isn't done yet."

/-/-/-/

For all the universe was a crazy and chaotic place, it did seem to have certain rules that it abided by. Rules that Watanuki was learning, albeit slowly. One, he was fairly certain, stated that Ichihara Yuuko was always right. However, he was beginning to think that there was another, similar rule that said that Doumeki Shizuka was almost always right (almost because Watanuki couldn't quite envision the other boy as being all powerful like Yuuko often seemed to be), or at least that he was right more often than Watanuki Kimihiro. It was aggravating and made Watanuki hope that the laws of the universe weren't really set in stone.

For once, however, Watanuki found that he wasn't particularly resentful. It was difficult to be mad at Doumeki for being right again when the fresh slip of paper in his shoe locker was staring out at him with such enticing possibilities. Just as the archer had predicted, his secret admirer had left him another note. Maybe this one would tell him who she was. Maybe it would even give him a chance to meet her.

With fingers that trembled slightly with anticipation, Watanuki reached in and pulled out the note, looking over it hastily. To his mild disappointment, he found that, like its predecessor, it was unsigned. Reading it more carefully, he also determined that there was no meeting suggested. All in all, the sentiments in the note were very similar to the first one he'd received. However, this one had a glimmer of hope that the previous one had lacked. At the end, the writer requested that Watanuki express his thoughts by leaving a note in his shoe locker the next day. Presumably, this note would be picked up at some point by the letter writer when she went to leave her next communication.

Watanuki wasn't quite sure what to make of the scheme. It wasn't as good as a name or a face to face meeting, but it was certainly better than nothing. And maybe if he was reassuring, this girl would at least be willing to talk to him so that they could settle things. Even if it turned out that he couldn't have feelings for her, it was better that she find that out in person rather than spending all her energy leaving notes that might or might not ever amount to anything.

"She's certainly being secretive," said a deadpan voice from his left shoulder.

Watanuki jumped half a foot and scrambled away so quickly that he ended up running into the lockers rather painfully. Straightening and rubbing his bruised elbow gingerly, he turned to face the speaker with a scowl. "Look who's talking! At least she didn't try to **sneak up on me**!"

"I didn't sneak up on you," Doumeki replied. "You just weren't paying attention."

Watanuki ignored that part, knowing only too well that it was true, and went on, "And you've been reading over my shoulder again! Does the concept of privacy mean nothing to you? What sort of backwater society were you raised in that you think it's polite to do things like that?"

As usual, Doumeki simply ignored him. "So, are you going to answer her?" he asked, pointing at the note clutched in Watanuki's hand.

"Of course," Watanuki answered. "It would be rude of me not to."

Doumeki scowled, but simply said, "Be careful what you say."

"I know that, you nitwit!" Watanuki snapped. "You think I'm going to say anything that might possibly lead her on and hurt her feelings later? Of course I'm going to be careful!"

"That wasn't what I meant," Doumeki said.

"Oh? Then what **did** you mean?"

Doumeki refused to elaborate.

"You're so unfeeling," Watanuki huffed, shoving the note in his book bag. "I don't know why the girls bother liking you; you never seem to consider their feelings."

"I'm not mean to them," Doumeki said, shrugging.

"Yeah, but you could be a little nicer. And you could be a little nicer to me too! I don't remember asking you to walk to work with me! Does it ever occur to you that I might like a little time to myself? You're so inconsiderate!"

Doumeki simply stuck his fingers in his ears and grumbled about the noise, but he didn't let it stop him from dogging Watanuki's steps all the way to Yuuko's shop.

Tbc...


End file.
